Disclaimer: I Don't Own Digimon. Okay?
Author's Note: I really do exist! I'm not just an internet phantom! I know that it takes a long time to publish an episode, but it takes just about that long to write most of a new one, and to edit the old. I've found that my skill improves considerably if I leave a long break between the new episodes and the ones I publish. As a result, I've been holding back on this because I just about shot my bolt getting to the end of the series. It gets a lot more violent, and begins to drift away from the characters to focus solely on the action for several episodes. I don't like that, but I've written myself into a corner. Plus my life has been full of a whole bunch of unpleasant stuff that I never liked to do in the first place. I really feel indebted to those who have been following this series. Thanks to all you reviewers out there! Treat yourself to something special!
Thanks for bearing with me. I try my best.
Episode XXXICasing the Joint
"Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even though they bring gifts." -Virgil, Aeneid, The
"Let's get it moving." Jim muttered, and the familiar yellow car, with Joe in the front seat, rolled away from a curbside in West Shinjuku, next to the huge Metro Government Building.
"Right on Jim." Joe was holding the set of communicators that Izzy had rigged up overnight from the communications gear of the Diplomatic Protection Group. With it he could talk to any of their agents who were currently watching the whole city. With his rigged D3 he could talk to any digidestined in Tokyo. "This is Yellowjacket, we're pulling out of West Shinjuku now."
"I hear you Joe." Izzy's voice crackled back from where he and Adam were working feverishly. They were assembling everything in their bags of tricks to get them ahead here, and the apartment Adam had was a natural headquarters. Ken was there, with the scanner, and he was the one keeping an eye on Tokyo.
"This is TK and Kari. We're ready to go." Joe nodded again. The two with the angels could get anywhere fast, so they were sitting with Mr. Ishida in the center of Fuji TV's huge news center, waiting for bulletins to come up.
"Bicorn here, so how's it shaking?" That was Noriko, on her bicycle somewhere in Shibuya with another digidestined friend.
"Not bad, not bad. This is Stallion, in Akihabara. What's the score?" Stallion was a pair of digidestined that Joe did not actually know, but that had their own car. He smiled inwardly at Davis's insistence that each mobile unit have a codename.
"This is overwatch three. Nothing here." Joe frowned just a little at that. It took him a moment to remember who overwatch three actually was, before he had it. Two agents from the Korean embassy, having a long, undisturbed lunch on top of a tall building, keeping an eye on the city.
"Ghostwatch. Nada. We'll keep looking." Jim smiled openly at that. Ghostwatch was the codename that the agents of Helios had developed for those who watched after Professor Takenouchi.
"Skywatch here. It's another clear Tokyo day. Unless you count the three car accident blocking traffic in the middle of the road near the Palace. It's going to be a messy day for the traffic boys." Skywatch was the pilot and co-pilot of one of Tokyo's police helicopters, currently aloft to seek out monster attacks.
"Matt here. Just another boring day here in Roppongi." Matt and Sora were on a long walking date in central Tokyo, with Biyomon flying behind, and Gabumon trying to stay out of sight in a nearby park.
"Tiger here. We're stuck in traffic." Davis voice came through the communications equipment, and Joe grinned.
"Stop complaining Davis." Cody responded, barely being caught in the device. Cody and his grandfather had decided to drive around anxious Davis.
"Tai here. Drive by me and I'll wave." Joe nodded. Tai and Agumon were hiding in the Shinjuku Gyoen park in Shinjuku, waiting for a chance to back someone up, or respond to any nearby attacks.
"Mimi here. There's a few wonderful sales here, but I can't see any signs of angry digimon." The sounds of a busy Ginza store nearly drowned her out.
"So what's the plan?" Joe asked.
"You two loop north and keep an eye on things there. You can stay out of the areas where we have nonmobile units, but we're still too widely spread to do anything. Just stand and hope." Izzy sounded a little worried, but Jim wordlessly swung the car around to follow the latest tracks.
General Samuel Hayes, US Army, Commander of the United States 16th Mechanized Infantry Division, stared at the document in his hand like it was some foreign object. The orders were clear, and offered no chance of avoidance, but they were confusing as all hell to him.
"What's up sir?" The officer in charge of the communications tent looked at his CO with an interested expression.
"We've been ordered to take up a training position outside of New York." Hayes shook his head. They were fine right where they were. Why was the Pentagon sending them off to New York?
"Why the hell are we going there?"
"Damned if I know." Hayes replied and then stalked off. He had orders to write, and it would take a lot of effort to move the whole division anywhere.
"So what do we hit first?" Yolei wanted to know as they began to pour over plans.
"I vote for Saffron Corp. They have a building, an office complex, near Ginza." Ken pointed to a spot on the map.
"How about Utopia Corp Central? Do they have any good targets?" Izzy asked, still paying more attention to his computer than to the rest of them.
"Yes they do. They have a huge office complex in West Shinjuku. But it's also a very secure office complex. We know because we've been watching them." Adam looked throroughly disgruntled. "We can't break into that without a good hammer or two. They also have a manufacturing plant down in Yokohama, but I don't want to hit that until I absolutely have to."
"So you think that the Saffron site is the least guarded?" Ken asked.
"I do, but what we do is up to you."
"Actually, it's up to you. Well, you and Izzy that is." Ken smiled at the other genius.
"Thanks for noticing." Izzy returned sarcastically. "Okay, calibration's complete. So now what?"
"We launch it." Adam picked up an oddly shaped device, a backpack with a long arm protruding from one side and several clamps. Quickly he clamped it firmly, but not painfully, to Tentomon. "Now remember, all you have to do is point it at the building. Try and get as close as possible without being seen."
"Righto." Tentomon responded.
"Right, you go this way." Izzy quickly pointed out a path outlined with red on one of Ken's maps. "You've already seen Ken's picture of the building."
"I could find it blindfolded." Tentomon saluted, and then threw himself out the nearby window.
"Okay. That takes care of one type of surveillance. Everyone else with me to the van. We'll take care of stage two."
"This is Skywatch. Finished on our Shibuya sweep, coming back to Shinjuku." The helicopters blades could be faintly heard in the background. "We'll be back in about five minutes."
"Right Skywatch. This is car four-two-one. We're heading south." The police car turned to a different radio frequency as it moved back into its normal patrol vector.
"Bicorn here. Harajuku checks out too."
"False alarm." Cody muttered.
"No kidding." Davis tried to relax back in his seat, with the side effect of almost sitting on Veemon. Veemon shot his partner a look, and hastily got out of the way. "See anything out there Cody?"
"Nope, nothing, not a thing." Cody watched as they slid by West Shinjuku again. The buildings were looking more familiar to him now, but Tokyo was huge, and there just were so many different places to hide. He stared at a now familiar building, built more like a fortress, with the Utopia logo on one side, and wondered what was happening inside, as Davis began to stare out the other side.
"So now what?" Yolei wanted to know.
"We case the joint. It's what they do in all the criminal movies." Ken replied, slyly taking the measure of the imposing building standing in front of him. The office building was a large affair, with towers in the corners, and everywhere offices looking out over the city.
"How do we do that?" Izzy wanted to know.
"Check out their security schemes. See if we can spot any weak points, see if there's anything interesting there. Right Adam?"
"About right, but I've got my hands full driving." Adam was indeed focused on the road.
"Well, let's see if these gadgets work." Izzy hit a few buttons on a keypad that was attached to the dashboard by duct tape.
"They better. Else we spent the whole night up for nothing." Yolei muttered back. She was a little tired.
Three computer screens, appropriated from the Tokyo University and charged to the budget of the Ministry of Justice, flickered to life in the back row of seats in the van. Wires ran from them to a little hole that Ken had drilled, over Adam's groaning, in the roof of the van. Above they had mounted a cargo carrier of the kind that was becoming popular in the city for businesses that wanted to use private vehicles as transport. Inside, however was different. Using the technical expertise and unlimited coffee of Professor Takenouchi's ghostbusters, Ken and Izzy had managed to get the grad students (who did not seem to need sleep anyway) to construct what was essentially a camouflaged camera carrier. Inside was a whole sensor cluster ripped off of pylon number four in the examination room.
"Beginning IR scan." Izzy hit a few buttons.
"IR scan commencing." Ken responded.
"Beginning EM scan." Another set of lights went on.
"Data recording features standing by." Yolei grinned at the two in the front seats, but they did not notice. She tried to ignore the fact that Ken was sitting so close.
The screens blinked, and then they blurred as data was fed to the huge databank that they had installed in the trunk of the van, storing data for future examination. But she did watch one thing. What had taken Izzy, Adam and the ghostbusters all night to really prepare was a modification of their standard scientific analysis software. It took the data from the incoming scans and transformed them into a model of the building, one that appeared right before her very eyes.
"So how illegal is this technology?" Ken wanted to know.
"Oh, very." Adam replied. "But only if we have the bad luck to get caught with it active."
"So obey the traffic laws very carefully." Ken kept watching his displays.
"Right. Izzy, prepare to turn off scan one. Okay, turn it off, circuit one complete, turning off now." Adam turned the vehicle off of his circuit around the Saffron Corporation building, so that any watching guard would not get suspicious of the same van circling again and again. "We'll be back in about fifteen minutes or so."
"Good." Ken bent over his keyboard again. "It will take us about that long to straighten out the data from the scan and see if we can map their office's electronics."
Yolei sighed at Ken's closeness, and at his distance, and went back to her computer.
"Opinions?" Khartan asked in a low rasping voice.
"Well Master," Bane let his voice trail off as he spoke the last word. "undoubtedly they have met with agents from Helios Ascendant. They will no doubt be aware of the existence of the Utopia Corporation and their somewhat unorthodox experiments into metaphysical relations."
"They will take that personally?" Khartan sounded like he was pondering something. In the darkness, none of his face was visible.
"Utopia's presence may serve to decoy them from our actual deployments. Hopefully they will not follow through with all of the hints that have been dropped. Our security is not the best."
"We will delay more to secure ourselves. The brute force approach was chosen to neutralize the threat of Helios and the digidestined as such, but more time will be required." Khartan sounded like he was trying to prove something, and there was a bite in his voice that Bane smiled at internally.
"Just remember what your superiors will say as the delay builds. They will not be happy with you at all, will they?"
It was all Khartan could do to repress the shudder.
Willis wondered briefly what he was going to do next. He wondered why he was trying to do this at all. It was early in the morning, and the Eagle's Aerie had fallen silent, the only sound being the air conditioner working in the background, cooling the computer room against the heated exhaust that the computers were putting out. Michael, who was living here while his father was doing a movie shoot out in Hollywood, was asleep upstairs, and Lou was here too. Willis's family had long ago gotten used to his frequent disappearances, and being out early in the morning was not going to give them any problems.
But the fact that he was not getting anywhere was beginning to bug him. He knew that he would not. He had designed the software, along with Izzy and Ken, and he knew its limits. It was designed so that he could not hack into it, so that he could do nothing to alter the path of the program once it started, or use its information. And if he could not, it was doubtful that anyone else could. Although, with the denizens of the Digital World, it was often hard to tell what they could and could not do.
Still, his fingers flew over the keyboard as he tapped frantically. In some part he understood that he was not supposed to be doing this, but he desperately wanted some sort of information on what he had created.
The IDEF link in the corner of his screen lit up suddenly. Sonja was on in Moscow, and she looked like she was trying the same thing, but the software was not responding well.
"Damn." Willis swore with feeling this time, hitting his fist into the ground right beside him. "I'm good."
"Now that's strange." Tai muttered into his hand. Something had just tingled his senses. For several moments he had been at peace, breathing the air of the fresh growing things in the small park, letting himself feel nothing but the bench and the sun on his face. Now he was alerted to the presence of something intruding on it.
"What's strange?" A voice piped up from behind him in the bushes.
"Nothing...nothing...except perhaps...I don't know, I just have a funny feeling." Tai confessed, leaning back into his bench.
"A funny feeling about what?" the voice wanted to know.
"About that big truck that just passed. It was bearing no logo, and its headed west. Do we know anything about what's happening in the west?"
"Let me see." There was the sound of unrolling paper. "Izzy's list says that there's a promotional sale at one of the shopping centers not to far away from the big office buildings.
"I say we go check it out." Tai turned to move off as his partner began to rustle through the bushes.
"This is Tai. I'm headed west to check something out."
"I hear you Tai. We're making our second pass in about five minutes." Izzy reported as Adam swore under his breath at the traffic. "How about you Davis...I mean Tiger?"
"This is Tiger. There's less happening than there is at school on Sunday morning. When do we get some action?"
"Probably sooner than either of us wants."
"There it is." Professor Takenouchi pointed at the graph.
"All right, that I will plainly admit. There it is. But what is it?" Takei, having abandoned the pretense of being nothing besides a normal university driver, stared at the lines on the graph.
"That is a neutrino burst."
"A what?"
Professor Takenouchi sighed and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Neutrinos. They're a type of elementary particle, they pass through matter almost completely, without interacting. We can pick them up only with specially built detectors. This chart is from Super-Kamiokande out in the west. It's probably the largest neutrino detector in the world, and they've picked up a massive surge in neutrino radiation, a huge swell of it actually, at three different points in the past month."
"How high is huge?" Takei wanted to know.
"I need to talk with Adam about this. He's done the high-energy stuff more recently than I have, but it looks like a hundred times normal."
"Wow." Takei blinked. "Is that hazardous?"
"Not really. Even at those densities they aren't really interacting with anything."
"Is it natural?"
"I would have to look it up. There can be events that would cause a similar upsurge. A supernova for example, although it would be visible. A solar flare perhaps. I really don't know because this isn't my field."
"So why are you concerned?" Takei knew the Professor well enough to identify his nervousness.
"Because this was sent to me by Dave Reynolds in America. He's working at UC Berkeley these days. He bought into the theory that digimon really are from another world, and it fascinates him. He tracked similar neutrino surges related to the havoc caused in the original digimon emergences. According to one of his theories the act of opening a large gate between two parallel universes would require a warping of space-time. He talks about a lot of side effects, like gravitational waves and other stuff that nobody can understand, but he believes that neutrinos are the only observable effects of this type of manipulation."
"Someone's been opening gates?" Takei sounded surprised.
"Either that or trying to. The theory's not exact. But I think I want Izzy, Jim and Adam to look over this one."
"There you go. Admit it. Admit it!"
"TK, you're just silly."
"I'm not going to let you get away that easily. Admit it!"
"TK!"
"Nuh-uh." TK leaned over close to Kari. "Say it."
Kari rolled her eyes. "All right. You're the man TK."
"Yes I am. That's what, five for me, one for you."
"Just luck TK." Kari's eyes flashed.
"I'm allowed to act like Davis due to my superior skill." TK announced.
Kari giggled. "Why do I put up with you?"
"Because you like me?" TK asked, adopting a sad puppy face.
"I guess that's why." Kari smiled at him.
The door to the office opened and Mr. Ishida walked in and raised an eyebrow at them. "What are you two doing?"
TK pointed down at the monitor screens on the desk. "We're playing a game. We're trying to predict where the next news story will take place. Usually it's just traffic accidents and such, but I managed to predict the backstore fire at the bakery down in Roppongi."
"You predicted the fire?" Mr. Ishida sounded surprised.
"No. I just called southern Roppongi as the next target. And I won."
"What did you call Kari?"
"West Shinjuku." She sounded sulky, but she could not disguise her smile.
"Well TK, you keep this up, you may have a future in journalism after all. Fortunately, today is mostly a quiet day."
At that moments his words were lost in the sudden outbreak of noise in the main office as all hell broke loose.
People started screaming as the massive figure burst through the wall in the computer section of the huge clearance sale. A teacher leading her students alongside the outside windows froze in sudden panic. Salespeople dropped what they were doing. There was a surge toward the exits. There was the crash of breaking appliances, the shattering sound of broken glass. The entire world filled with sound and noise and commotion.
Bakemon surged through doorways to the outer regions, screaming for blood and death. Little children started screaming, yelling and crying all at the same time. A large, burly sales clerk came running out, sweeping children out of the way as fast as he could when a sudden blow from a Bakemon right behind him sent him sprawling. A police car screamed to a halt outside, but the unarmed police inside could only call for backup.
The teacher screamed as the first digimon, a huge green figure, covered in metal bands, that looked like Frankenstien's monster, lumbered straight through the glass wall covering the front of the store. Then she tried to grab a kid standing in front of the storefront, even as she realized that the kid was not in her class.
"Get ready to be crushed kid." The huge digimon looked down at the kid standing below him.
"I know what to tell bullies like you." The kid looked back pugnaciously, and then raised his hand to reveal the device within. "Digivolving time."
"Agumon...warp digivolve to...WarGreymon."
"What?" The digimon, Boltmon, staggered back as the Mega exploded out of the street beside Tai. Then, with only a moment's hesitation he sent a blast of green fire right back at Tai.
"Tomahawk Knuckle!"
"WarGreymon!"
The Mega dropped to one knee in front of Tai, the kids in the street and the police officers watching in wonderment. His golden shield slid off his back smoothly, and slammed together in front of him, shielding him from the oncoming attack. Green fire blasted all over the street but the bystanders remained safe behind the glowing shield.
"Get everyone clear." Tai instructed the police, who were watching the events with an expression of awe on their face. "Get them to safety now!"
As one of the officers started to move, the other turned to stare with disbelieving eyes at Tai. "What about you kid?"
Tai gave him a tight, confident grin. "We'll take it from here."
"Trouble!" Joe let out, but Jim was already reacting. Fortunately only one irate driver was able to honk his annoyance before the yellow car was screeching in the opposite direction, disappearing rapidly to the south.
"Gomamon, wake up, we're about to have company."
"I am awake. I was just resting my eyes." Gomamon complained, and his orange crest rose from the beneath the chair.
"Trouble." Adam was already turning the car toward West Shinjuku.
"How much?" Izzy asked tensely.
"A lot." Ken reported from the back seat. "They're calling in everyone. We've got a big thing going down in West Shinjuku."
"Tentomon!" Izzy yelled, but the bug digimon was already zooming on his way to West Shinjuku.
"Can we catch them?" Yolei asked nervously.
"We better be able to, because Tai's already there."
"Great." Izzy muttered under his breath.
"What the hell's going on?" Tokyo Metropolitan Police from the brand new Tactical Response Team were dismounting fast. Their leader, a relatively tall man named Takaeda was staring at the two police officers already on scene, while trying to get his team assembled as well. The new Response Teams had screamed their way to the accident site in a little under a minute. Still, it looked like the outside festivities were already calming down. Now they were dismounting from their armored vans, and looking totally lost as they surveyed the chaotic scene. People had mostly managed to escape the building, and were grouping on the opposite side of the street, watching the spectacle in awe. The police on the scene were not much different, jaws open as they surveyed the situation.
"That kid there, he had one of those...whaddaya call 'em...digimon. Anyway he showed up and pulled our bacon out of the fire, but the good guys and the bad guys are still fighting it out inside the building." The police officer's finger and voice both shook.
"All right, I guess we'll sort this out later." Takaeda shook his head.
"There they are!" Somebody screamed.
The top of the building had exploded, concrete fountaining upward. Takaeda watched fascinated as a warrior of scarlet and gold shot his way aloft, hurling toward the sky. Sunlight glinted off of armor like shards of a rainbow.
"That's the good guy." The shaking officer told him.
The roof exploded again as Boltmon shot up himself, pulling his huge weapon off his back. It glowed with inner fire as he propelled himself upward, gathering the energy to strike a fatal blow.
"Tomahawk Crunch!"
A ball of gold and crimson fire formed in the sky, glowing like a new sun. Underneath it Takaeda could see the glowing warrior from before concentrating. Suddenly he hunched down and hurled the globe like a fastball.
"Terra Force!"
The explosion ripped through the city. Windows shattered under the impact. Above them the department store began to shake. A tower used for a series of high priced restaurants began to fold slowly over to one side.
"Shit." A Tactical officer swore.
"I don't think we want to get involved in that." Takaeda confirmed.
"Look. There go some of them now!" Another officer pointed to a side street where a group of figures that looked like they were wearing white sheets appeared to be making their getaway. Takaeda swore and began to look for handy men to lead an organized pursuit.
"Oh no they don't. Digi-armor energize!"
"Veemon...armor digivolve to ....Rapidmon!"
"After them!" A kid wearing a flame colored jacket and riding what looked like a giant blue lizard shot down the street, rapidly eating up the distance between the battleground and the fleeing digimon.
"Armadillomon...digivolve to....Ankylomon!"
"Ankylomon...digivolve to...Shakkuomon!"
"Shakkuomon, catch that building!"
"Got it." A huge metal giant reached up with awkward looking movements and caught the tower, quickly keeping it from falling down. The creature was huge, a tower of steel himself, a titan out of legend. The claws sank into the building almost immediately, and suddenly the tower was stopped, braced by an impossible figure.
"That's the thing from Odaiba!" Takaeda swore. "What's going on around here?"
"Officer!" The first kid that had been pointed out was tugging on his jacket. "You have to get the people out of there. There are still evil digimon in there."
Takaeda shook himself. Whatever was going on here it could wait until after he had done his duty. He gestured and Tactical Unit One ran into the burning jaws of hell.
"I can't see a blasted thing." Somebody muttered, but Tai was not paying them any attention. He had a whole squad of police troopers behind him now, and he would be damned if he was going to worry about the Bakemon he had seen earlier. The place looked like a fairly ordinary department store area, and Tai could even see stacks of shirts that were probably to be sold later, but not there was a haze of smoke and darkness hovering over everything.
"So what now kid? Any ideas?" The police officer in charge leaned over. "What's your name anyway?"
"I'm Tai. Listen, you have to get the people out of here, and soon. The bad guys are probably going to try and escape this place anyway they can, but they'll try to go through anything in their way. So be careful. They all have supernatural powers."
"Right, I figured that. Can you tell us anything specific about them? My name's Lieutenant Takaeda by the way." Takaeda paused, as the other officers gathered around him.
"It's simple. The ones who look like ghosts in white sheets are called Bakemon. They can attack by extending their arms and grabbing you with those sharp claws. Thing is, with almost all digimon, they have to yell this thing out before they actually do their attack, so you can avoid it most of the time. Bakemon would rather run than fight. I thought I saw a few Thundermon though, and they could be more trouble. Think of them as giant, floating bowling balls. Those guys are fast, but they're probably already out of there." Tai looked around. "Big thing is we have to get the people out of here before the really big guns show up."
"What does that mean?" A short cop with a bushy mustache asked.
"More trouble Kiyesu." Another replied.
"It means that we have reinforcements on the way. When they show up there could be a real battle here instead of a skirmish. And we don't want that to happen with people around." Tai responded, and then spoke into his D3. "Where are you guys?"
"Davis here. They're trying to scatter into northern Shinjuku. I'm running them down, but I really could use some backup here."
"Skywatch One here, we'll try to give you some air cover here."
"Forget that, this is TK and Kari. We're about a minute out, but we can see Lilymon ahead of us."
"Okay, the good guys are on their way. So what's your plan?"
"Kiyesu, take your team and see if there's anybody to the west. Ryo, your team gets the northern corridor. Tai, you and the rest of us will check the center area, and hope everyone's already out. Team two." Takaeda spoke now into his radio. "I want a perimeter around this place. Keep it secure. Let's move people."
"Moving chief. We're so moving here."
Takaeda sighed as half of his manpower disappeared into two different directions, leaving him, seven cops and a kid who might be seriously deranged, alone in the middle of a screaming building.
"Look out sir!" Someone yelled, just as something that looked a lot like a floating bowling ball and a white ghost came out of a side corridor.
"Damn!" Takaeda swore.
"The ghosts' talons raked the ground where he had been standing as he threw himself aside. Behind he could hear the clicks as a German made MP5 swung down and opened fire on the two opponents. His own weapon rose at the same moments, and the streams of fire converged, blasting the Bakemon from existence like he hadn't ever been there. But the other one was too quick, it flew straight through them, scattering officers aside like bowling pins. A moment later they all rose again cautiously, one officer nursing a cut on his arm.
"Where did he go?" Somebody asked.
There was a buzz, and everyone threw themselves down again as the creature shot through them again, sending them flying. There were a few gunshots as the police tried to bring him down, but they all missed.
"Blast." Takaeda swore.
"Behind you!" Tai pointed.
Another blast of gunfire cut down a Bakemon who had been prowling toward them, but the Thundermon swept through again and sent them all flying.
"Thunder Volt!"
"Down!" Tai threw himself down and everyone else followed his lead as electricity poured by overhead. Takaeda poked his head back up, saw another Bakemon floating up to them, emptied a handful of bullets into it, and then ducked back down to reload.
"Right, so how do we fight that?" Takaeda asked. There was a series of clattering bangs as an officer emptied his MP5's entire magazine, but only succeeded in catching open air.
"Got you." A huge hand reached through the wall and plucked the digimon out of the air like a ripe plum, dashing him to the floor unconscious. Then the wall cracked entirely and a huge angel revealed himself, floating right outside the window. There were gasps of shock from the police, but Tai only smiled.
"So Angemon, how are things outside?"
"Almost all the people are out." The angel responded in a deep voice. "So we're going to get you out of here. Matt wants to do something because the building's caught on fire. Just come on out, we have ramps for you."
"Right, we'll follow you're lead. Everyone, follow the nice angel." Tai leapt out into the air, and landed on something solid right below the window. Takaeda gestured and then followed Tai himself, landing on a glowing bridge of pink energy. Above, glimmering the same shade of pink, another angel, this one definitely female, stood glowing and expanding the bridge herself. Quickly Team One managed to get out of the building, the last officer thoughtfully tossing a grenade behind him to insure their privacy.
"Take it away Matt!" Tai yelled as they hit the ground. Next to the bridge, a giant metal wolf growled, and then rose to his feet, opening his mighty jaws.
"Ice Wolf Breath!" The blast of Ice froze the entire building into something from the Antarctic, an ancient ruin entombed in ice. The fire died instantly.
"Thing's we'll be a bit wet in there for a while, but at least nothing else will catch on fire." A blond haired boy told him, as he jumped onboard the wolf's back, and the two soared effortlessly into the sky to join a huge bird already in the sky.
"What the hell's going on?" Team Two's chief ran up, gun-totting tactical officers straggling up behind him.
"I'm hoping some one will get around to telling me that sooner or later." Takaeda responded, looking a bit shell shocked himself.
"Tomahawk Crunch!" The Tomahawk came closer and closer, but WarGreymon did not move until the last possible instant. Then he jetted smoothly aside, and Boltmon was left swinging at air. WarGreymon responded with a blast of energy that threw Boltmon violently backward.
"This could go on all day." WarGreymon complained, sounding almost bored. "Give it up already."
"Not until I defeat you! Tomahawk Crunch!" Boltmon threw himself up again, energy blade cutting through the air, but WarGreymon used his superior speed to jet aside and watched the energy blade blast harmlessly toward space.
"How can you expect two newly digivolved digimon to defeat a more experienced, and, might I add, superior digimon?" Piedmon's voice, or something akin to it rang in WarGreymon's ears. He could not remember the words, but he remembered the meaning and now he understood it. He remembered Tai's voice telling him that the digimon might be growing stronger, and now he understood the meaning of that too. The first time he had warp digivolved he would have been hard put to even stay in the battle alone for all this time. Now he was looking at this ferocious Mega attacking him almost as if he was being attacked by an in-training.
The other digimon was obviously not used to this kind of energy expenditure, or this level of power. WarGreymon remembered the feeling. You felt invincible, unstoppable, like you could do anything you thought about. Every movement left you surging with energy, glowing with inner fire. Now, more experienced, he understood that even a warrior like him had limits. Below Boltmon was a source of tremendous power, but WarGreymon's greater training and familiarity with his skills would normally have overshadowed power. Now WarGreymon was only using the slightest of efforts to escape the pounding attacks of Boltmon. Boltmon was drawing upon the power that kept him going, his essence as a Mega to launch attack after attack, draining him almost as fast as anything WarGreymon could have done. And WarGreymon was barely expending any energy rendering everything Boltmon did as useless. This was simply too easy.
At the same time he kept himself aware. It had been too easy for Piedmon now, but Piedmon simply was not around anymore. That made an important object lesson. Never underestimate your foe. Ever. WarGreymon kept this in mind, waiting for Boltmon to spend so much of his power that he would be easy pickings.
He sensed a change in the flow of battle and reacted defensively, widening the gap between him and his opponent suddenly to give himself more room.
"Ice Wolf Spikes!" Missiles blasted almost out of nowhere, surrounding Boltmon in a cage of blue ice, leaving him imprisoned, unable to move. Only his eyes could communicate the horror he was feeling now.
"Finish it!" Matt yelled from his position on the back of MetalGarurumon.
"Mega Claw!" The claws of glowing energy stopped just short of a kill. Boltmon glowed in agony and then shattered, returning the digimon inside to a small rookie WarGreymon could not identify.
"I have a message for your master. Tell him that we're stronger now than we ever were, and that we have it in for him. Tell him that we're coming for him." WarGreymon let his eyes glow menacingly as he stared down the small rookie, but the rookie suddenly seemed to be taken by a greater terror than WarGreymon had caused.
The tiny digimon screamed once, and then shattered into digital data as the disbelieving megas looked on.
The Bakemon flew as fast as he could, desperately trying to outrace the pursuit that had already claimed so many of his fellows. He could not hear if they were still behind him, but with the stakes being as they were, he refused to take chances. People screamed and dived out of his way, pointing disbelievingly, but the ghost refused to be distracted. There was an area ahead with lots of multi-storied buildings. Perhaps he could get lost inside the maze of buildings to escape pursuit.
New screams erupted some distance behind him. He was sure it was his pursuit, but he was so close...so close...
A yellow car screeched to a halt in front of him. Two people got out, one a human, the other a digimon.
"Gomamon...digivolves to...Ikkakumon!"
"Stop now while you still can." The huge champion roared at him.
"But I can't." The ghost stammered. "I failed him...do you understand? I failed my master...my master...master, no!" And then he too exploded in a shower of data.
"So it looks like your friends and you did it." Lieutenant Takaeda checked over the list of injuries to his officers. Only three, and none would even require hospital time. "So, Tai, what happens now?"
Tai looked profoundly embarrassed. "Well, you see, er...I doubt my parents will approve of my playing superhero, they'll probably...er..."
"Ground you until next millennia. Yeah, parents can be like that sometimes. I take it you don't want me to be public with your name or something. Because we could include it in the news, but they would just come besiege your house with reporters until you finally got fed up and blew up on them. And then that would be all over the papers."
"Yeah, I would appreciate it if you could happen to forget." Tai muttered, grinning awkwardly.
"Sure thing. I would hate to have to explain half of what's going on here. Just do me a favor. Here's my card. It has my office number on it, and my home phone. Find some way for us to get in contact with you in case of an emergency. Looks like we need the help of you and your pals more than ever." Takaeda handed over his card.
"Well, maybe you can do us a favor." Tai suggested awkwardly.
"Like what?" Takaeda raised an eyebrow.
"How would you like to be the digidestined police liaison?"
"... But swift action by a talented group of children partnered with tame digimon, children who call themselves digidestined, managed to thwart the attack. Yes, you did hear correctly, children all over Tokyo who have received digimon as partners in recent events were able to use their new allies to save hundreds of civilian lives, and bring one attack to a satisfactory close. Police and government officials both now claim that having a digimon may not be a public health risk as originally thought. In fact, one police officer who declined to state his name was quoted as saying 'Those things you call monsters just saved my lives and a whole bunch of other lives at the risk of their own. If they were human, we'd call 'em heroes, and that's where they are in my book. Even if there are others causing all this terror, you know the saying, fight fire with fire.' And it looks like this may be just how the police are planning to fight these attacks. Highly placed officers have requested that any child currently partnered with a digimon, who feels that they are up to the difficult task of helping save our city and our world, that those children contact the police immediately using the following number..."
The dark figure switched off the television.
"Plans go awry Lord Khartan." He spoke finally into the air. "This could prevent us from forcing the digidestined underground."
"That is no matter." Another voice rumbled back. "In fact, it may provide a distraction for us. We must continue with the original plan. However I would be greatly pleased if those Japanese digidestined responsible for all this were to perish."
"That fool Adam has taken them under Helios' protection. It will be harder without resorting to means that could be traced back to us, and to our purpose."
"Adam is many things, but not, I think, a fool. Still, he has a match somewhere. Find Thanatos for me."
"At once my Lord."